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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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May 22, 2007 - 09:12pm PT
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Cats Paw = green dot.
All those routes put up in prior lugged soled stuff had to be a different game indeed; the picture that has been posted of Kamps on Fairview Dome's Inverted Staircase, edging about in Cortinas, helps tell the story.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 22, 2007 - 09:17pm PT
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The only advantage of that heavier footwear was better ankle protection but the stiffer rubber acted like a good wax job so you would take off with more gusto!
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Anastasia
Trad climber
California
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May 22, 2007 - 10:25pm PT
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Bump again...
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nboles
Trad climber
fremont. ca
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May 23, 2007 - 12:45am PT
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A sort of bump. Reading this thread, I realized that many of my best climbing memories had something to do with a Higgins and friends route. The Vision, Never Wrack Point, Old Goats and my all time favorite early season warm-up's the Eunuch.
Alas the Eunuch got erased.
norman
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 23, 2007 - 09:46am PT
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Good link Ed - thanks.
The notes could be helpful (but not in this case) as it seems the guidebooks are getting worse each time. In the New Reid Guidebook, the third belay is wrong and the first rap station is not shown. There is an easy ledge leading left from this "new" rap station, so it almost looks like it could be the 5.8 traverse on the second pitch thereby further confusing the onsight leader (me in this case). The Reid Guide also does not tell you what rack to take - I brought a pretty full one (glad I did).
I kind of miss the old verbal "topos" that tell you what's up and what to look for!
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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May 23, 2007 - 11:42am PT
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I always loved climbing with Higgins. It was a regular tradition for us each summer. One time he couldn't make it, so we did a new route just to the right of Nerve Wrack Point and named it Higgy Stardust. Tom liked the name. My young companion, Gray, a full foot taller than me, was into David Bowie music... Gray and I climbed Gray Ghost with Bachar, a beautiful line with great climbing. One day I got the idea of making a little film of climbing in Tuolumne, and Higgins thought the Vision would be a good route, photogenic. I brought my protege Christian Griffith, 14 at the time, to be Higgins' partner, since I'd be filming. Tom Frost came along as my partner in the film process. Frost and I soloed up some route to the right of the Vision, to get above. We were tied together, and I had some gear, in case I needed to clip into something, and it started getting thin and tricky, espcially with a 50 pound Nagra taperecorder hanging off my right side, so I put a nut in and clipped in the rope, thinking Frost was belaying. I made some move, looked down, and Frost had gotten tired of waiting and was racing up the rock about fifteen feet below me. He was carrying the big camera. I had to chuckle a bit at this Laurel and Hardy sort of scene. By the way, when I did Inverted Staircase with Kamps, I was amazed at how easily he climbed that steep crux slab pitch in his Cortinas. I was stronger than he, but no one could quite turn a thin slab pitch into such a Sunday stroll. All edging, mind you. You don't smear much of anything in Cortinas or Kronhoeffers. All those climbs, now that I think about it, had at least some little "sweet Jesus" moment. Wish I were there right now...
Pat
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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May 23, 2007 - 03:54pm PT
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I remember finding a pair of Kronhofers in 1976 and testing their friction on Parabola in the Quincy Quarries. They were better than EBs on this route. Maybe there were some microflakes which caught on the little lugs to help out. Of course Fires stuck much better than both as we all know.
Eunuch is not erased. I did the original version, and I still do it the same way - just ignore the bolts added on "Boltway". "Just Say No".
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nboles
Trad climber
fremont. ca
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May 23, 2007 - 06:39pm PT
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I have led the Eunuch by skipping the 4 added bolts. Its not the same climb, the bolts are there if you get uncomfortable. The commitment is gone and the commitment was the point. Yes, its easy 5.7 or 5.8 (if you believe the newer books) and I have been climbing run out slabs long enough to still find it easy, but when I first did in the late 70' with EB and 5.8 being my led limit. It took everything I had to start up .... that climb has been erased.
norman
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Gene
climber
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May 23, 2007 - 07:08pm PT
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Shame about Eunuch. It held my full attention BITD.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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May 23, 2007 - 08:15pm PT
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I thought Eunuch trended right where the belay is? To the right of "boltway" some 20 or so feet?
"New Reid Guidebook" ??? I thought Falkenstein was the only author on the recent one? Based on prior conjoined book topos anyways, but for second I was thinking that there was a different book.
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nboles
Trad climber
fremont. ca
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May 23, 2007 - 09:50pm PT
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Nope, Boltway drilled right over the top it. The 5th bolt up was the only bolt on the first pitch of the Eunuch. After you clip that, its go up and right on fun 5.6 to a bolt anchor then 2 more fun pitches up. The last two pitch are what you do if you take
Table of Contents to the top. The 'climbers' who put up Boltway, could stayed to the left of the Eunuch. The climbing would't have been much harder but they just didn't care.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 23, 2007 - 10:33pm PT
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I was just up there last weekend with Gary Carpenter, we were doing laps on Stately Pleasure Dome... Hermaphrodite Left to Boltway, Hermaphrodite Right to Eunuch and Great White Book... done those all many many times.
I can't really tell the difference between now and then.. yes, the added bolts take the typical Tuolumne runout fact down a bit, if you don't count the fact that the old bolts are really old and could be replaced... What is the second pitch of The Eunuch is easy but still runout like it always was.
Lots of bolts have been chopped off of Stately Pleasure Dome in an attempt to restore those climbs back to the "old days". I ran into TM Herbert at the top of White Flake once when I was looking around for a belay station... seemed to recall someone had put a couple of bolts in, but couldn't find them. TM helped me out, but it was obvious that they were gone, he seemed to remember them too. TM complained "why are people chopping the bolts? this place isn't for the hardmen, it's for mere mortals like you and me." I was bemused.
There are plenty of 5.7 test pieces in Tuolumne Meadows, and while I am annoyed at the contrived line of Boltway (I usually take the more "natural" 5.8 variation) it just an annoyance. Nothing to get knickers in a ringer... maybe minerals would disagree. Marty Steiger around to defend the route?
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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May 24, 2007 - 06:00pm PT
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Thank you John for the hats off to Sweet Jesus. And to Pat for memories of my favorite climbing ground. And to all for showing the energy and passion of what's it like going onto those great, sweeping knobby walls, sometimes all the way up, sometimes not. Maybe most important, it appears John is well enough to climb again. Fantastic and hope pain and any immobility are gone.
What to say? Well, yes, the old green dot neoprene soles were pretty slick, in spite of sanding them as I did when new. And the welts on the Kronhoffers were not very integral to the upper - they didn't stick out, but had some separation. I epoxied that junction to fill the gap and reduce bending when edging, but the epoxy cracked and needed constant redoing. The result never came close to a modern shoe. It meant we looked at the rock differently - lots more edging, less smearing.
Chris did the first part of the third pitch, then I did the rest. I was so excited to get over the little crux and start climbing rightward, I didn't think much about the second swinging off the crux. Chris rightly yelled, "Hey, what about me?!" And so in went the bolt to protect the second but there still is some swing potential there. Years later, I did the route again with Bruce Cooke (after which the Cooke Book is named) and Tom Fukuya and Bruce was very happy to be in the middle to get both a top and back rope. Maybe that's the trick.
As for how the route wanders around some and is run here and there, we always looked for cracks, ledges, indents, black streaks, any place we hoped would get us up with holds and protection possibilities. Sometimes we read the rock right, other times not so right. And, in the backs of our heads were the greats of the time and times before who impressed upon us the bolt was last resort, a scar, a blotch to be minimized. On top of that was the fast setting sun and the demands of hand drilling from sometimes bad stances. So, the results are there, sometimes great, sometimes mediocre, sometimes perplexing and scary, but locked inside as the best stuff of life one still carries around.
Thanks to all for rekindling the memories!
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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bobh
climber
Bishop, California
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May 24, 2007 - 08:00pm PT
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Hi Tom!
I've had four run-ins with this route:
1973 -- Armed with a description that said "look for some bolts right of Chartres" we ended up on what would later become A Wrinkle in Time, which was at that time an incomplete bolt ladder leading nowhere. We fell a bunch, thought it seemed harder than the Lament (10a), which we'd done a week before and was the hardest thing we'd done. We decided this probably wasn't the route we were looking for, bailed, never did figure out where Sweet Jesus was.
1974 -- Did it with Clevenger and Bill Nickell. Vern had already done it, so he showed us where it was. Fun, uneventful.
1981 -- Did it again to do One Toke. Uneventful until it poured rain as we were descending back to the base.
2004 -- Did it again, via the One Toke. Scary old bolts. Longware hangers? Kudos to ASCA for fixing this beauty. Climbing was even better than I remembered. Tried to cram gear into the little folds below the second(?) bolt to back it up.
Based on the positive comments regarding the original variation, I guess I need to go and do that again. This is really a good route, steeper and more featured than a lot of Tuolumne slab climbing. It links natural features/weaknesses up an improbable wall -- a Higgins trademark, IMO.
Roy, if you guys were both leading off those bolts at the same time, you're a kook.
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 24, 2007 - 09:27pm PT
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Cool history Tom - I was wondering how you guys broke up the leads.
I dig doing routes like this. You have to think like the leader did on the first ascent to "read" the route and where it's going...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 25, 2007 - 10:56am PT
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Thanks for posting Tom. It is curious to reflect back on the old attitude about bolts. A bolt used to represent a certain level of personal failure or weakness as a last resort to allow passage or a secure stance on a climb. Drilled protection occupied a position antithetical to the rest of the tools used to protect the leader to the extent that bolting was not even considered to be a climbing activity by many. Something more akin to a foxtrot with Mephistofeles. The drive to avoid bolting turns new routes into an adventure in exploration rather than a paint by the numbers overlay with respect to the outcome.
In my own climbing, the decision to place a bolt always centered on the legacy of boldness left by climbers like yourself, Bob Kamps and Frank Sacherer. Am I fit right now? Could somebody else do this section in better style? There was an honest and generous attempt to leave alone what one could not climb in good style on a given day knowing that immediate need could easily eclipse all other considerations if allowed to.
By alligning my mindset with that of my bold and inspiring predecessors, I could more fully appreciate their experience and acccomplishments. Historical grounding has also kept me from doing foolish or inconsiderate things to the climbs of others.
Climbing history is the gift that keeps on giving. These old and bold routes and the stories behind them are the gilded threads in the tapestry.
Edit: Who put up Boltway?
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Greg Barnes
climber
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May 25, 2007 - 12:22pm PT
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Just back from the Meadows, the mosquitos just started coming out at Lembert parking yesterday, but nowhere else (OK, saw one by the road below DAFF).
Roger must have accidentally replaced a doubled pro bolt. Those are pretty common on the older routes (I think Roger removed 3 or 4 doubled pro bolts on just one route, Nerve Wrack Point). He'll be really bummed about that, he tries very hard to restore routes to the original state. He was rapping in from the top, and I remember him telling me that he was having trouble matching the topo and the various routes/stations. He got a bunch of retreat biners off of Sweet Jesus, the route was littered with them! Roger spent many days replacing nearly the entire right side of Medlicott, and has worked harder than perhaps anyone as far as sheer numbers of bolts replaced. He can hang out all day pounding away with a hand drill, for days on end.
In any case, sounds like we need to remove/patch one of those bolts and replace the other with a regular hanger (I'm assuming that there are rap ring hangers?).
As far as Eunuch - the spinning 1/4" bolt with a Leeper hanger (5th bolt on the Boltway) is the original. The other bolts are mostly 5/16" buttonheads with stainless SMC or the "big Leeper" late-80s hangers (I still don't know precisely who made those), most of which have been beaten flat and re-straightened. It's really a shame that the Boltway wasn't done 20' left of the Eunuch, that would have been an independent line (and then straight to the thin crack on the next pitch instead of the strange bolts out right).
And while we're talking about original bolts - does anyone know the heritage of the 1/4" bolt at the 2nd belay on West Crack (by the tree about 40' above the roof)? I keep forgetting that it's even there (I never belay there), but noticed it yesterday and it really ought to be either removed or replaced - there's an outward pull on a old thin SMC hanger. It looks a lot like the old bolts on Sunnyside Down.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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May 25, 2007 - 01:26pm PT
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The mention of the Eunuch reminded me of a question I had for Tuolumne folks. Years ago, I chopped the old rusty bolted anchor ten feet right of the crack at the top of Great White Book - it was dangerous, but not needed at all, and experienced folks were building trad anchors while inexperienced people were belaying off the old bolts.
However, a friend of mine who's been climbing in the Meadows since the '70s said that that anchor was placed not for GWB, but for Dixie Peach, Mosquito, etc that come up the face, and that the bolted anchor shouldn't have been removed. I've done a few of those routes, and there's a belay scoop with OK pro (kind of hollow) about 40' right and down from where the old bolts were.
There's a small sloping ledge that's about 20' right and a bit down from where the old anchor was, and my friend suggested replacing the chopped anchor with a new one over there - far enough from GWB that climbers on that route wouldn't even see the anchor, but close enough to the original position so that people coming up the top of Dixie Peach and the other routes would have the anchor.
Any comments? I'm in no hurry to do any pounding, but I am feeling a bit guilty about chopping that anchor and leaving Dixie Peach, etc. climbers hunting for a missing anchor.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 25, 2007 - 01:27pm PT
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I doubt that bolt on South Crack is original. I don't recall any mention of it in written descriptions, the best prima facie evidence for bolt originality on old routes. They rarely escape mention.
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